For a local event this was an early start but Tina and Julia managed to arrive by 7am ready for box checking. We were thin on the ground today but only had Jack in a singles and 1 pc slot with Bessie/Milly/ Willow and Rudy so were looking forward to a relatively quiet day and even though the weather forecast rain it kept fine and warmed up as the day went on.
We started early with Jack in his first singles heat which was due to be run against Mick and Cub, however they had pulled out and he would have had an empty lane to run against (not good for Jack) so we quickly pulled Sheena in as a stooge dog for him to run against. He was well up for it and managed to clock 2 x 5.25's and a 5.45 in the 4 heats. We even managed a 0.02 and 0.03 start and considering he hasn't been on starts since we left Cambs we were well pleased.
We then had a wait for the first pc slot. Rudy took 1 lane with Caroline helping us, whilst Tina took Bessie and Willow in the other lane. All the dogs did well. Willow had to be reminded to go over the jumps and although Bessie had some sniffs at the gate and spat the ball a couple of times, once she decided to go she ran really well.
The 2nd pc slot we had Milly and Willow along with Rudy in the other lane with Julia. Rudy worked back to run over 3 jumps with a turn and returning to Sue over the jumps, a massive leap forward for him - will done boy. Milly and Willow again ran well, Abigail has trouble holding Willow back now as she is so keen to go. Milly needs reminding of the box turn and collecting the ball each time but once she remembers what she needs to do she runs well.
Jack then had his 2nd singles slot, this time againse Mia, a miniature schnauzer, small dog syndrome here we come!!! Luckily we managed to get runs from Jack withought interfering although he was extremely interested in her!! Again he managed another 5.25 sec run so it wasn't a fluke in the morning. Unfortunately Julia didn't do so well with the starts this time and had a couple of real earlies but we had got times for him so no one was bothered!
The last pc slot saw Caroline take Rudy again working on his runs whilst we had all 3 spaniels in the other lane with Julia box loading. The first run was a bit of a shambles but with reminding Milly again we had all 3 running clear and collecting the ball.
We were really pleased with all the dogs today, they ran really well and Jack amazed us all with his times. At presentation we were really chuffed to find that he had won his div, well deserved Jack with a new pb too, keep it up!!!